Only surfed Rincon once. Easter vacation 1968. My best friend and i packed up my '56 chevie and headed north the first day of vacation and caught Malibu on the very first day/swell (south) of its season. There was NO one out. But by the time we suited up, Dewy Weber, Angie Reno and one other guy were hustling down the beach along side the two of us (me and my bud). It was 4-6 ft and glassy/perfect. So awesome.

We took off that evening and caught some more excellent surf the next morning at a place called 'Stanley's' (Stanley's Diner). Then drove up towards SB and slept by Rincon. It was only about 2'-3' but fun. I wish it would have been bigger, but i think it takes a NW swell. We were headed towards The Ranch (our whole reason for taking the trip). But got sidetracked when we met these two gals/sisters in a campground in a place just south of SB called Carpentria (no surf) and did an abrupt change in plans and followed them and their parents back south (i kinda fell in luv/i think it was the first time a girl stuck her tongue down my throat) lol!

Never made it to the ranch, and their dad did an excellent job of ditching us! I did get to surf some of the best and most powerful surf I had ever seen up until that time at a place called California Street. WOW, non stop 8-10 ft barrels lined up for miles with no one out but us. It was between a jetty & a pier (i think it was a pier) perfect rights!!

As we passed it on the way back south to diego, Malibu was still pumping but it was a total zoo, we didn't even go out. Killer vacation. We were both 18 and anticipating a free two way ticket to Nam with a very possible belly-up in a body-bag return trip, when we graduated from HS 2 months later. So we made the best of that Spring Break!!

edit: wish i had pics!! :(

btw, i did run into that very same babe about 10-12 years later while i was working in LA. we made up for what we were denied after her dad managed to ditch us! ;)

The main attribute of The Ranch was how few other surfers there were, usually. Its breaks can be terrific but so can a hundred others further south. Being right at Point Conception, sticking boldly out into the Pacific as it does, the area also is kind of a wave machine, for sure. But you weren't always guaranteed solitude and tons of waves there; a couple good sized boats up from Gaviota or further south, and your picture-perfect break could become just as disappointing as any other ones back in town.

I remember sneaking into Perkos and Governments in the middle of the night from Jalama and through the unlocked gate. It was autumn, 1969, I think. Surfing for a day there in great 3-4 ft glassy conditions at Perkos, we three had the place to ourselves, reveling until Mike Hynson finally woke up and paddled in from his boat he had moored outside the kelp. And the usual takeoff battle began all over again with his trying to be preeminent, snotty, and assuming he could hog at will all the waves from the nobodies from Santa Cruz. And to whom he wouldn't even chat. This all by himself and no henchmen. You see he was still enjoying notoriety from co-starring in Endless Summer. So we just shut him down and watched him blow a fuse; easy to do since he was solo. A couple of moves into the encounter, he tried to snake another wave from my buddy who was already riding it, so I just grabbed the nose of his board and watched his narcissistic act collapse. I think he was even having a fantasy, all by himself, of being watched, adored, even filmed. It was not a good plan though, as the three of us were hell bent for leather to get a good day in, having risked trespassing and the giant hike in, and all pretty gnarly folks from Steamer Lane.

Eventually though, Ranch foreman Floyd and his big gang of revolver-toting cowboys found our little camp in one of the ravines above the beach and soon we were hiking back out to Jalama.

Yep, Hynson & Frye were as different as night & day. They both road for & worked/shaped for G&S when I was in HS ('65-'68) and the G&S shop was directly east of OB (san diego) as was our HS and whenever a strong swell hit, the two of them and all of us would beeline it to OB! Mike was a total snob, and Skipper was extremely friendly. He would pass down like new boards to the needy youth & sit on the beach and talk story while filing/fine tuning his fins.

Evidently Hynson has had a change of heart in the last few years. He lived on the streets of PB for over a dozen years as a total down & out meth head. Made his way back and has emersed himself into shaping and reflecting on how his life went wrong. Seems like an okay guy now. He has some great shapes/boards and sponsors a lot of up and coming young surfers. His Hynson Model Redfin was daKine stick to have during the sixties and to this day for that matter, a great big wave board. One of the first flat bottomed down-railers. But Skips similar model is right on target also.

I will never forget surfing at PB pier on the last day before they closed the pier for surfing during the summer of '68 (swimming only). It was about 3'-4' with an occasional 6 footer, but the usual left off the pier wasn't breaking at all. Everyone was surfing about 50-100 yards north of the pier. I was sitting on the cliff/bluff watching Skip surfing for about 45-60 minutes, and all of a sudden he starts paddling down to the pier. There wasn't a thing in site on the horizon and had been zero waves at the pier all day. It took him a while to paddle the 100 or so yards, but just as he got there, this perfect six footer comes rolling in next to the pier and he rides it into the beach and then splits. I was there all day, from early morning tell evening and did not see another wave break at the pier all day.

Blew me away! (the dood is legend)!!

edit: "Endless Summer" - during the Spring of my sophomore year in HS ('66) Bruce Brown came to our school (H. Hoover HS) auditorium, which is were all the surf movies that came to san diego county played, and MC'd his latest flick "ES"! Just as he was getting started he mentions that MH is in the audience, and Mike pops up and starts bowing a couple times each in all four directions! lol

This is Joe's writing, but I paragraphed it differently to make it easy to read.

It was around this time [1956-57] that Yvon took up surfing in addition to climbing. The flat top of his Ford sedan accommodated a surfboard very nicely, and he would throw his forge and anvil in the back and head for the beach. If the surf was up he'd ride the waves; if not, he'd set up his equipment on the beach and pound out pitons and put the gates in carabiners. It was all work and play. In 1957, as if in a parallel universe, another youth from Southern California was raising the stakes in another game. Greg Noll and six of his friends decided that they might be able to surf the bug waves at Waimea Bay on the north shore of Oahu.

This was two years before Sandra Dee popped out of the big screen as Gidget and the surfing craze really got going. There are a lot of parallels between the early climbers and surfers. They not only scaled big walls, and rode big waves, but they made do with little money, overhauled their respective technologies, expected and wanted recognition only from their friends, and enjoyed a camaraderie that all but disappeared as the sports became more popular and populated.

The physical sensations the two sports offer are quite different, but I suspect that the psychological states are very similar--long periods of hanging around in a beautiful, natural environment, and then a moment on the edge where you trust that your experience, ability, and confidence will lead to a happy ending. Chounard was the only one truly able to compare the two sports, as he was the only one of that era who participated in both.

When I was a kid, however, I learned how to body surf at Coraona del Mar by watching older surfers. Most of them body surfed, but a few owned long, hollow, plywood boards that had a cork at the rear for letting the water out. When the surf was crashing along the top of the breakwater, a wave would brab me by my scrotum and pile drive me into the sand if I didn't get to it in time, or it would wring me out like a dishrag until I didn't know which way was up.

But when everything came together, when the crest of the glass-green, arcing wave shot me toward the beach, and I felt not in control of the wave but in control of my own body as it merged with wave's power, focused only on this moment immersed in the roiling froth sll around me, then the ride eclipsed all other experiences. Heady stuff for a scrawny kid. Then we moved to Glendale, too far from the beach for regular trips, and my surfing days were over.
--Joe Fitschen, Going Up

Scanned from JF's Going Up.

Credit: mouse from merced

Who could doubt that Pratt would've hung ten had he desired. Such balance.
Seen Glen's other photo of him standing on the guardrail while juggling over Yosemite Point?

Peter, never been to this thread. Never knew you had salt in your veins. Nice outlawry. Bandits on the Ranch, Boss!

All my surf days were placid but one, and I've told it elsewhere. It involved Ike, my b-in-law, who had the misfortune to be almost drowned by an Outsider at the Jetties in Oxnard, during a sub-tropical event. That was the Last Time. I never went out again in storm surf. Way too hairy and unpredictable for a Merced wannabe.

This was one of the best and most original things here, IMO. Surf shots are way cool, mostly, but the climbing posts are excellent in juxtaposition.

Add to this my earlier post about the Boss and his experiences in both, then the OP answer is Yes, the two compliment one another, much like cookies and milk, Abbott and Costello, (here name any of your your favorite poisons).

The best shot to combine the two is the one of Mz. Justice, hanging twenty in the air over the water hanging on rock while her shadow imitates her.

Splitter, especially--
My days at Rincon were so easy-going. A nine-footer is what I had, so that's what I rode, learning no tricks, just being a dog on a board, content with the ride I was getting, FOR DAYS. The wave's so long there, you forget it's a long walk back to the point!

Three words for my experiences at Rincon: Paradise for pussies.

Never been there during any kind of outrageous conditions. The ride's probably a lot less easy-going, I imagine.

I really liked the Rincon vid, drljefe, it took me back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the Rincon was typically populated by a tenth of the crowd. It was truly a deserted place, oftener than you might imagine. That was in 1971, forty-one years ago.

I had jobs in the hills above the Rincon and serviced pipelines and tanks and treatment facilities for a contractor out of Saticoy. That island is one of the leases I worked on, but I can't remember which company or companies leased that place. I think it's a collection point for the wells out in the channel, as I recall, where the crude is "heat treated" so it will flow more better through the lines leading to the tanks, wherever they are.

My brother-in-law and I got into the yard at about the same time in the afternoons, he at his pump service and I at the contractor's. We'd race home, clean the day's dirt off, then meet at my place, throw the boards into the DORF, and head for the Jetties. Two hours until dark to get the stink of crude out of my head. The weekends were for Sespe, Tahquitz, and JT, sometimes, even, YV.

Fishing, mountain biking, and even dirt-biking (done in a conservative way), trolling on ST, all are compatible activities with climbing.

Really good tales just above, thanks Splitter, Russter and Brian. Nostalgic too. Especially Splitter on the catchup on Hynson. I had no idea, especially since I am not in the surfing culture to much extent any more. I sure do lurk in it though. I go to Surfline.com all the time and watch my favorite spots in HD.